Buyer-seller relationships in the supply chain: factors affecting customer and seller commitment

The purpose of this paper is to generate a framework that simultaneously explains the commitment of the buyer and the seller in industrial marketing relationships. As Jackson (1985) observed, these relationships involve evolving pairs of commitments on the part of the buyer and seller. This paper integrates previous literature on supply chain management and relationship marketing with concepts from consumer behavior-benefit/cost analysis (Russo 1988) and social psychology-self-efficacy (Bandura 1986, 1997). These concepts were incorporated into a model explaining information use within organizations (Celuch, Kasouf, and Strieter 1998). The authors hypothesize that the decisions to develop commitment in bilateral or network relationships involve assessments of the relative expected benefits of the relationship, and the belief in the skills of one´s own organisation and those of the partner(s)